


On the Seventh Day

by Atsuki-hime (Atsuki_hime)



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Dissociation, Drug Reliance, Dubious Consent, Hell Before Happiness, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Themes, Sensory Deprivation, Tags updated as story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 10:16:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8746369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atsuki_hime/pseuds/Atsuki-hime
Summary: Grindelwald took everything from them.Hating the shell of a man he's become, Percival Graves must deal with the trauma of having his life stolen from him.Feeling betrayed and lost in a world foreign to him, Credence Barebone must deal with the darkness inside of him.Together, they begin to heal.





	

**Author's Note:**

> These poor boys will see hell before they get the happiness they deserve.

**Monday,** December 20th, 1926  
_The First Day_

_\--_

 

 _Loud_.

 

When the Aurors find him, there is a ruckus. He is on the edge of consciousness, barely aware of his surroundings, as the Aurors shout to each other.

 

“He’s here! We’ve found him!”

 

“Director Graves! Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

 

“Send word to Madam President. She will want to know this as soon as possible.”

 

 _It’s so loud_.

 

He doesn’t quite understand what is happening, but the faint sense of _saved_ thrums in his veins. He is pliant in the Aurors’ grasp – he knows some of them, but their names fizzle out before becoming clear in his mind. They pull him from his prison cell in the sewers, flashing wandlight in his eyes and examining his body for injuries.

 

They squawk like hens at each other, but he can only make out bits and pieces. The sounds of other human beings are almost overwhelming.

 

Malnourished, he hears. Unresponsive, he hears. Dislocated shoulder, broken wrist, he hears.

 

It all happens so fast. Time, once seemingly unmoving as he rotted away in the cell, suddenly lurches forward and throw his senses into an uproar. It almost too much, his head feels like it’s about to split open in two, and just before he’s about to scream out in pain from the loudness of it all, someone takes his hands into theirs and everything seems to calm down.

 

“You’re safe now, Mister Graves.” That voice. It’s so incredibly kind and throaty with emotion and _familiar_. He focuses, finds the face that belongs to the voice, to the hands, and lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he is holding.

 

 _Tina_.

 

Her eyes are watery and her smile is bright despite the dark, dank sewers they stand in. She squeezes his hands once, mindful of his injuries, before turning his palms upward.

 

“You’re safe,” she repeats, pressing something smooth and heavy into one of his palms. “I’ve got you.”

 

 _Portkey_ his mind suggests, just as the world around him swirls away into nothingness.

 

\--

 

First, things had started out loud. Now, everything was loud _and_ bright.

 

He didn’t know how long he’d spent in that cell, sometimes unable to tell where his body ended and the darkness began. But now, he is suddenly sprung forth into blinding light and noise, and he wonders if it is another hallucination.

 

But his hallucinations had never lasted this long or felt so physical. He can feel every hand that touches his body, lightly as to avoid jostling him, but guiding as they whisk him down the winding hallways of the MACUSA headquarters to the infirmary. He can feel the residual irritation of the _scourgify_ the mediwitches use on his skin to cut through months of sewer and filth, the scrape of _diffindo_ against his head and face as they slice away his long, matted hair and beard to nothing but a stubble.

 

He does not resist. They handle him through vital charm after vital charm, giving him potions for the malnourishment and the pain caused by the resetting of his left shoulder and wrist. They have him change into light, clean clothes and hang his injured arm in a sling wrapped around his neck.

 

 _Tina_ , he thinks, repeats like a mantra in his head. She is not present when they pass him from mediwitch to mediwitch, having disappeared in the clamor. Despite the familiarities of everyone he sees, the knowing looks in their eyes, his brain can’t fathom any of their names, except for hers. He wants to ask for her, but he can’t find his voice in the motions of their hands and wands and assessments of his health, so he keeps his eyes down and follows along.

 

Eternity and an instant pass in the breadth of a moment, and soon he is alone once again, sitting on a bed in a private infirmary room, a hummingbird Patronus hovering nearby to alert the mediwitches if his health suddenly declines. He is alone, but he is not in darkness. He can see everything, feel the extent of body, hear the harsh, guttural sound his throat makes when he clears it, taste the unpleasant hint of potions on his tongue.

 

 _Saved_ , his body thrums, and he thinks he might sob if the door doesn’t choose to open at just that moment.

 

First, two Aurors walk in that he recognizes, but once again their names elude him. One of them holds something heavy in their hands. _Pensieve_ , he recalls, before Tina follows them in.

 

Relief floods his chest momentarily when he sees her, and in the bright light of the room, he can finally see her face clearly. It’s obvious she is sleep deprived, the dark circles under her eyes prominent against her pale skin. She smiles at him, but it’s weak, and he briefly wonders what has happened to her when his last guest enters the room.

 

 _Seraphina_ , his mind registers immediately as his eyes land on the President of the Magical Congress of the United States of America. She appears calm and collected as she closes the door behind her, locking it with a wandless charm. One of the Aurors conjures a chair for her directly in front of him, and she takes the seat elegantly. When their eyes meet, she studies him silently for a lengthy, drawn-out moment.

 

“You look like you’ve been to hell and back,” the President says, breaking the silence, and he can’t stop the cynical snort that escapes his nostrils.

 

“You could say that,” he responds, his voice rough with disuse. He clears his throat several times after speaking, and it feels like sandpaper against his windpipe each time. The last time he had used his voice, he had screamed until his throat was raw and flecks of blood stained his lips and each labored breath seared his lungs. After that, his voice had become useless in the darkness of his prison. Who needed a voice when there was no one to hear it?

 

A glass of water suddenly appears in his line of sight, and he glances up at Tina, who is looking at him expectantly. He takes the glass from her, nodding his thanks, and she smiles at him once more before stepping back. The water feels glorious against the desert that is his throat as he takes a sip.

 

“I understand that you’re a victim of a tragic sequence of events,” Madam Picquery begins, watching him carefully. “While I know that you are tired at best, protocol must be followed. As the Director of Magical Security, you must understand this.”

 

His tightens his grip around the glass he’s holding as he watches Madam Picquery take the Pensieve from the Auror who was holding it.

 

“Of course,” he manages to grit out through clenched teeth, immediately taking another sip of water to soothe his throat. He understands, but that doesn’t mean it will be pleasant.

 

Madam Picquery’s eyes soften for a moment before holding the Pensieve between them. One of the Aurors brandishes their wand, stepping closer to him.

 

“We will try to make this as quick as possible,” Madam Picquery says softly. He glances at Tina once, who looks at him with a deep crease between her brow, before he feels the tip of the Auror’s wand against his temple.

 

He takes a deep breath, and succumbs to protocol.

 

\--

 

A year.

 

He had been in that damned cell for an entire year.

 

As he relived each of his important memories since the moment Gellert Grindelwald had cornered him on that snowy evening in December of 1925, the rage he had almost lost to the darkness began to grow hot in his blood once more.

 

Each memory was examined carefully by Madam Picquery and the Auror who wasn’t plucking the memories from his brain for information as well as authenticity. They had all been completely fooled by the darkest wizard of their age posing as the Director of Magical Security, not a single one of them noticing a difference. Even though Grindelwald had been captured that very morning, just as the sun had begun to touch the horizon, they were not going to risk the possibility of another intruder so easily.

 

Once his own memories had been cleared, he had noticed a visible slump in the President’s shoulders, as if a weight had been lifted. She had stood from her chair, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder and murmuring, “It’s good to have you back,” before clearing the room with everyone except Tina.

 

Tina takes the seat the President had vacated, leaning on her elbows against her thighs as if she can’t support her own body weight. He watches her, his grip white-knuckled on the now empty glass of water. She reaches over and carefully plucks it from his hand, before vanishing it wordlessly.

 

Silence hangs between them. They are both a pair of tired, worn out souls – victims of a madman who need nothing more than a warm bed at that very moment, and they share that unspoken kinship for a few calming moments before he dares to speak.

 

“Will you tell me?” He hates the sounds of his own voice right now, rough and weak, asking instead of demanding. “Everything, Goldstein. Will you tell me everything that happened?”

 

“Of course,” she whispers, nodding.

 

And she does.

 

\--

 

The sun has long since set when he stands in front of the door to his apartment, contemplating whether he really wants to go inside or not.

 

At this very moment, this apartment is all he has left.

 

His wand – _no, it’s Grindelwald’s wand now_ , he reminds himself – has been confiscated for evidence. His office had beem sealed off from outsiders as the Auror’s conducted their investigation. If not for his insistence on leaving the infirmary ward of the MACUSA headquarters as soon as possible, the apartment might still be under investigation as well. Luckily for him, it had been cleared quickly as it became apparent that Grindelwald spent little time there during his masquerade.

 

Cleared by the mediwitches with strict orders to take care of his healing left arm, and forbidden from returning to work for at least the rest of the year, he’d demanded to return to his home to rest in peace. Now that he was here, having bee escorted by the dutiful Tina Goldstein after she’d ask that awkward British man – _Newt, like the salamander?_ – to follow Queenie home, he didn’t know if he truly wanted to go inside.

 

 _This is yours_ , he tells himself, angry at himself for his hesitation. He had never been an indecisive man, but it had been less than twenty-four hours since the last time he’d been convinced he was going die alone in the sewers and his sense of self was almost nonexistent.

 

The chill of the hallway makes his bones ache, and he finally twists his good hand around the knob, unlocking the door with a wandless spell that takes more energy than it should to execute.

 

The apartment is cold, just like the hallway outside, just the like the cell in the sewer. He mutters a spell under his breath, and with a wave of his hand, the lights sputter to life. He has to close his eyes and take a few moments to catch his breath after that spell, and he bites down the disgust he feels before making his way to his bedroom.

                                                                                                    

The apartment is mostly unchanged, except for random objects left overturned, presumably by the Aurors who did the investigation. There is a fine layer of dust over items that remained untouched in his absence, and not even the clean freak he once was can be stirred awake when all he wants to do is succumb to the blissful state of unconsciousness in his own bed – something he was told Grindelwald never touched.

 

That deep-seeded rage flushes his body with every thought of Grindelwald. Grindelwald took everything from him – his wand, his job, his _face_.

 

Grindelwald had taken over his life all for the sake of finding a thrice-damned Obscurial.

 

 _He didn’t deserve that fate_ , Tina had managed to choke out around the lump in her throat when she spoke of the boy – _Credence Barebone_ , his mind supplied.

 

The Obscurial had died thinking Percival Graves had betrayed him, and he didn’t know if he felt sorrier for the boy or for himself at that thought.

 

At this point, it didn’t matter, because he had a sleeping potion in his pocket and it was calling him to the sweet embrace of dreamless sleep.

 

He’s just about to turn the knob on the doorway to his bedroom, already feeling his body lose some tension at the thought of escaping reality for just a little bit, when the loud crash of breaking glass comes from behind the closed door of his guest bedroom.

 

There is a commotion behind the door as he hears the heavy thuds of objects falling to the floor in the guest room as something thrashes around, hitting the walls and shaking the ground beneath his feet. That rage boils hot underneath his skin, and even though he is wandless and on the brink of passing out from exhaustion, he storms to the guest room in a wave of fury.

 

Whatever has caused this disruption, even if it is Grindelwald himself, will face the wrath of the Director of Magical Security without mercy.

 

As the clock in the great room strikes midnight, he nearly sends the door to the guest room flying off its hinges with a wordless spell before freezing in his tracks at the sight.

 

There, sitting on the bed in a mess of shattered glass, surrounded by a churning black mist, is the thought-dead Obscurial.

 

 _Credence Barebone_ , his mind supplies once again.

 

The rage in Percival Graves’s blood fizzles out.


End file.
